I didn’t know how to answer my daughter's question. My gut feeling told me John had been cheating.
The staff member, seeing we were motionless, stepped forward to pull us away.
My daughter tripped and scraped her knee on the rough stone pavement, blood oozing out in a large patch.
After days of anxiety and frustration, my daughter couldn’t hold back and started crying.
John caught sight of me through the crowd, his eyes wide with surprise, instinctively walking towards us.
"Do you know them?"
"Dad, I’m so thirsty after filming. Can I have ice cream?"
John looked away from us, gently smiling at the mother and son in front of him.
"I don't know them. They're just strangers!"
"Let’s go, let’s get ice cream!"
He picked up the boy, holding hands with the woman beside him, and walked past us without looking back.
After accompanying him through the lows of his life for eight years, all I received was a dismissive "strangers."
My daughter stared at John’s back, gasping for air as she cried.
"Mom, why did Dad say he doesn't know us?"
"What did I do wrong that made Dad not want me?"
My heart ached deeply, and I carefully avoided her injury, holding her close.